What Happens in Cardiff
by Pir8grl
Summary: Sara and Snart meet a fellow time traveler who bears a striking resemblance to an old enemy.


_**LoT/Torchwood Crossover**_

 _ **The lovely LarielRomeniel requested a crossover with Jack, and the super-awesome stillthewordgirl helped me think my way through this one.**_

* * *

"Cardiff?"

"Seriously?"

"What are we supposed to do in Cardiff?"

Sara whirled the captain's chair around to face her crew. One look at her expression ceased the whining, almost immediately. "You're all very smart people. You'll find some way to occupy yourselves. There's a castle, and a waterfront, and a museum devoted to Ray's favorite TV show."

That earned a snort from a certain crook, and Sara spared him a grin before continuing.

"Jax, you'll be monitoring the engines while they soak up energy from the rift. If the Waverider ain't happy, ain't nobody happy."

"I'm on it, Sara," Jax said, heading off down the corridor.

The others filed out, and Sara slumped in relief. "I swear, I don't know how Rip did this for so long. It's like minding kindergarteners, sometimes."

Snart just smirked at her. "You know, you're pretty damn hot when you're captain-ing."

"Just for that, you're buying."

"Buying what?"

"I dunno. Lunch. Drinks. Whatever there is to be had around here."

"Here. In Cardiff, Wales, the cultural center of the universe," Snart drawled.

"Don't start. The engines needs refueling, and there's a rift in time and space that's emitting the correct sort of energy. All we have to do is sit here and soak it up. I'd say that's a way better deal than trying to find some last remaining outpost of the Time Masters and asking for help."

"Point taken."

Sara stood and stretched, then held out a hand in invitation. "C'mon. Let's go get something to eat that doesn't come from a replicator."

* * *

It was a remarkably beautiful day, and the crook and the assassin were content to stroll outside in the non-recycled air and sunshine. Snart couldn't resist pulling Sara in for a kiss, and she smirked against his lips as she felt his hands go for a wander. This was an old game of theirs…what he was doing, was trying to count all her concealed weapons. (He was good, but he rarely managed to find them all…at least, not outside of their quarters.)

"Hello there," said an eerily familiar voice.

Sara froze in Snart's arms, and she felt him slip a knife from the sheath at the back of her belt. She turned slowly, shielding the knife in his hand from view.

"Malcolm," she said in a deadly quiet voice.

The tall man in front of her certainly looked like Malcolm Merlyn, even if the billionaire had never, to her knowledge, sported a World War II vintage military coat. His expression was puzzled.

"I'm sorry…have we met? Captain Jack Harkness."

"Cut the crap, Merlyn," Snart snarled. Quite apart from any damage the Legion had done to him personally, this man had engineered Sara's murder, and a bit of payback was in order.

The 'Captain' raised his hands in a non-threatening display. "I don't know who this Merlyn person is, but I can assure you, I'm not him. However, according to our facial recognition program, you, Mr. Snart, are supposed to be in prison, in America, and you, Miss Lance, are supposed to be dead. Care to explain?"

"Care to call off your friend?" Sara replied, coolly eyeing the dark haired woman who was sidling up behind him, pistol held down out of sight from casual observers.

Snart smiled blandly. "Facial recognition software would say you were Malcolm Merlyn, even though you claim you're not. Do we look like a convict and corpse to you?"

"Fair point."

"Jack?" the woman asked, in the musical local accent.

Jack raised a hand to stay her. "Look, we just want to talk." He glanced around at the smattering of tourists. "Why don't we take this inside?"

"I don't think so," Sara retorted.

"We weren't asking," the woman said, stepping forward and raising her gun.

Sara blurred into motion, knocking the gun out of the other woman's hand and pinning her to the pavement.

Snart circled menacingly, knife in hand. Jack stepped back, trying to keep the situation from escalating.

"Hey! We know you're time travelers. We just want to talk!"

Snart cut his eyes to Sara. She gave a minute nod, then stepped back.

Jack extended a hand to his associate, without taking his eyes from Sara and Snart. "Gwen, you OK?"

"Fine," she muttered, scrambling to her feet.

"OK, let's talk," Sara proposed.

Jack looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

Sara shrugged slightly. "You seem to think we're time travelers. I think we just proved that you can't make us do anything we don't really want to do. So let's talk."

* * *

Sara and Snart were silent for the trip down to the Hub, no more than mild curiosity showing on their faces.

Jack stared at them quizzically. "I see it takes alot to impress you."

Sara shrugged slightly. "You've seen one secret lair, you've seen 'em all."

Snart touched her arm lightly, gesturing upwards.

"Pterodactyl. OK. That's impressive," Sara admitted.

"I can't decide if Ramon would be looking for somewhere to hide - "

"Or demanding one of his own?"

"Finally, I get a reaction from you people!" Jack crowed. He led the way to a conference room and gestured to the chairs.

"My colleague, Gwen Cooper," he said, indicating the brunette.

"Sara Lance, and Leonard Snart. But you seemed to know that already," Sara replied, sliding into a chair.

"So, what makes you think we're time travelers?" Snart asked conversationally.

"I don't think - I _**know,**_ " Jack answered. "It's my job." He noticed that Sara kept her focus on him and Gwen, while her partner kept scanning the room, always coming back to settle on the exit.

Sara just quirked an eyebrow at his words.

"No, really," Gwen laughed. "It's our job. We monitor activity through the rift, recover any flotsam and jetsam that washes up."

"Or, in your case, lands in the middle of the Cardiff Bay Wetlands Reserve."

Sara and Snart exchanged a concerned glance.

"Don't worry - you're cloaked," Jack said quickly. "I just happen to know exactly what I'm looking for."

"You mean that Tosh has programmed the computers to know exactly what you're looking for," Gwen teased.

"Hey - trade secret!"

"Look, we're no threat to you," Sara began. "Quite the opposite. It's our job to monitor and repair aberrations in history. We're only here because our ship found a good source of energy to refuel the engines. As soon as that's done, we'll be on our way."

"You're taking this news rather calmly," Snart observed.

"Let's just say, I've been around a long time. It takes a lot to startle me," Jack replied blandly.

Gwen pressed her hand to her mouth to try and repress a fit of giggles.

"Not helping," Jack told her.

"So…we're good?" Sara asked.

"Sure. What's a little rift energy among friends?"

"No offense, but we just met," Snart replied. "You're a long way from friend territory."

"Point taken," Jack acknowledged. "Temporary business partners, maybe?"

"Maybe," Sara conceded. "What've you got in mind?"

* * *

"You sure this is a good idea?" Snart murmured in Sara's ear. They were parked in an SUV studying the house that supposedly held a piece of alien tech.

She shrugged. "Break into a house and open a safe - both of which you could do in your sleep, and the guy who monitors the really good energy source owes us a favor. Seems like a good deal to me."

"You know, you're really incredibly sexy when you're being Captain."

"Remind me again, after we're done here," Sara replied playfully. She stiffened as she noticed Jack watching them in the mirror with an appreciative gleam in his eye.

"No need to be flirtin' with everything that moves, Jack," Gwen said quietly. She turned and leaned over the seat back. "This fellow that you say Jack looks like, he's a bad one, right? Who is he? What's he done to you?"

"Malcolm Merlyn blew up a sizeable chunk of the city where I grew up, and killed about five hundred people in the process," Sara answered.

"And he engineered Sara's murder," Snart added.

"You mean attempted murder, don't you?" Jack asked.

"No, I don't," Snart said in a flat tone.

"All right," Gwen said calmly. "But do you both understand that Jack isn't him? If things go badly in there, I need to know that you'll have our backs."

"We're good," Sara answered. "I understand about parallel worlds and different versions of people and…you're not Malcolm Merlyn. However much you might look like him, you just…you're different. We got this."

Snart nodded his assent.

* * *

The supposedly sophisticated house alarm system was child's play for Snart. Ditto for the safe. Jack pocketed the bit of alien tech, and that should have been that. Easy peasy. The… _ **thing**_ …that came surging up through the basement door…that was an altogether different prospect.

"That's the last time I leave the ship without my own gun," Snart muttered, drawing the Glock 9mm that Jack had loaned him, insisting that he preferred them to be armed with something other than Sara's admittedly impressive collection of ceramic knives.

The thing was vaguely humanoid, with a bony skull reminiscent of an ape…one with a lot of teeth. Also claws.

Sara glanced quickly around the room, then yanked down a drapery rod and shook off the curtains. Not as good as her own staff, but it would provide some distance between her and whatever the hell that was.

"You didn't say there were weevils here!" Gwen said sharply.

"Didn't know!" Jack tossed back irritably. He was pleased to see that the two visitors didn't waste time on commentary - they just got down to business.

Gwen and Snart began firing their pistols, with minimal effect.

"Do not let it get a hold of you!" Jack cautioned.

"Wasn't planning on it," Sara retorted, cracking the weevil on the side of the head. The staff broke over the misshapen skull. She discarded the pieces and drew a knife. She circled the creature warily, looking for a good opening.

Snart noticed and redoubled his efforts, wanting to keep some distance between the humans and the monster. It looked altogether too strong to risk going hand to hand. And then his ammo ran out, and the precious seconds needed to reload was all the opening the weevil needed. It launched itself at Snart.

Jack intercepted it and they went down in a mass of twisting limbs. Sara threw one of her knives with deadly precision, landing in the creature's eye. Gwen stepped over it and fired repeatedly into its skull, until it stopped moving.

The room was suddenly, eerily silent, except for their harsh breathing.

Gwen shook herself, as if coming out of a trance. "Jack!"

Snart stepped forward quickly and heaved the dead weevil off of Jack. The man's eyes were open and staring, and his chest and neck were gaping and bloody.

Sara stared down in shock, wondering how the situation had spiraled so quickly out of control. "I'm so sorry," she gasped. She knelt down and reached out to gently close Jack's eyes.

He inhaled sharply and grabbed her hand.

"What the _**hell?"**_

Sara wrenched her hand free and threw herself backwards. Snart grabbed her arm and hauled her unceremoniously to her feet, stepping slightly forward and leveling his gun at Jack.

Gwen set her gun down and stepped forward, empty hands in plain sight. "We can explain."

"Quickly," Snart suggested.

Jack cleared his throat and spat out a glob of blood onto the floor. He sat up cautiously. "I can't die," he said simply. He got to his feet. Except for the blood and tears in his clothing, there appeared to be nothing wrong with him.

Sara let out a long, slow breath, and laid a hand on Snart's gun arm. "Believe it or not, that's not the strangest thing I've ever heard."

"Speak for yourself," Snart muttered.

Jack stared at Sara curiously. "You'd know something about being dead, wouldn't you?"

"Not the way you're thinking. That grave in Starling City is empty right now. My family buried an empty coffin when they thought I'd been lost at sea. I won't be murdered for a few more years yet, in this timeline. And I didn't come back on my own. I had to be brought back, and then my soul had to be reunited with my body. It wasn't pretty."

"But you're here," Jack said calmly.

"So are you. How?"

"I don't know. That's the truth."

"This is all fascinating," Snart drawled, "but maybe we should discuss this elsewhere." He was having a hard time resisting his thief's instincts, which were to run at the approaching wail of sirens.

"I'll handle it," Jack said, with a certain amount of resignation. "You three just go back to the car."

"Is he serious?" Snart demanded, holstering his gun, and considering all possible exit routes.

"He is," Gwen assured him. "One of the perks of working directly for the Crown. Jack will tell them it's a weevil attack, they'll roll their eyes, and we'll drive away. Come on." She walked calmly to the door.

Sara and Snart exchanged a quick glance. Sara shrugged slightly and followed.

* * *

Gwen had broken out a selection of Jack's finest booze while he was cleaning up. She'd a feeling their guests could do with a good stiff drink or three.

"Sorry your first visit to Cardiff was so exciting," Jack said, coming back to the conference room in a fresh shirt.

Sara couldn't resist walking up to him and stopping toe to toe. The skin of his neck was smooth and unmarked - no scars at all. She caught herself reaching out with one hand, then stopped, thinking to shove that hand back in her pocket.

Jack caught it with a smirk, and brought it up to his lips for a gallant kiss. There was a mischievous glint in his eyes as he caught the way Snart's gaze darkened. Laughing, he released Sara's hand and stepped back.

"Sorry," she whispered.

"Don't be."

"So…are we good? If we ever need to come back here to refuel, I mean?"

"Why not? Like I said, what's a little rift energy among friends? Or colleagues, as the case may be," he added, raising his glass to Snart in a mocking little salute.

Sara downed her drink, then set the glass back on the table. "I'd like to hear more about how you can't die, someday. I bet you can tell some interesting stories."

"Likewise. Tell me, in your time traveling, have you ever encountered a man called the Doctor? Travels in something called a TARDIS - looks like a blue police box?"

"Can't say as we have," Sara replied. "What's a police box?"

Jack laughed heartily at that. "Trust me, if you ever see it - or him - you'll know it."


End file.
